Last week on Super Tuesday, all-news cable TV made it plain that CNN, MSNBC and Fox News have displaced the major networks this primary season as the best on-screen source for political coverage.
Last night, the 24/7 cable news channels were again dominant, but this time they stole the thunder from local TV news operations - making area broadcasters that were unwilling to cut into network prime-time programming seem all but irrelevant with their 11 p.m. newscasts in cities such as Baltimore.
At no time during the evening was the shift in journalistic commitment and importance more obvious than shortly after 7:30 p.m., when it was announced that the polls in Maryland would stay open until 9:30 because of bad weather.
The first outlet to report that crucial information to area voters was MSNBC - not any of the Baltimore TV stations that endlessly tell viewers how well they serve area residents and cover the region.
Local stations were running lucrative syndicated fare such as Access Hollywood and Wheel of Fortune at the time. WMAR (Channel 2) and WBAL (Channel 11) aired political ads and promotions for their news team, respectively, during the 7:30 half-hour before reporting the real news of the moment.
MSNBC not only reported the 90-minute poll extension first, but it also immediately cut to a remote interview with one of Maryland's members of Congress, Democrat Chris Van Hollen, who explained the icy roads, heavy turnout and some of the thinking behind the decision. It was news, explanation and context in an exemplary, no-frills, four-minute bite.
As strong a commitment as MSNBC has made to political coverage this season, it has generally been running behind CNN in ratings and journalistic performance - mainly because CNN has been such a juggernaut in technology and talent. But if the first job of journalism is to give citizens reliable information that they can use to make informed decisions, then no TV or online news outlet had a better moment last night than MSNBC when it reported the extended voting hours in Maryland first.
(For the record, CNN was the second to report the news - about five minutes after MSNBC. Then came WMAR-TV.)
But cable TV owned the Potomac primary story all day and night.
The polls closed at 7 p.m. in Virginia, and within five minutes, CNN had projected Barack Obama the Democratic winner, while laying out the parameters of the continuing battle between Republican candidates John McCain and Mike Huckabee. (McCain would go on to win.)
By 7:10 p.m., the cable channel's political team had sliced and diced the exit polls with analyst Bill Schneider.
Viewers interested in more exit poll data could find a non-stop flood of information at CNN's top-rated Web site cnn.com from 7 o'clock onward throughout the night.
Local stations WMAR, WJZ and WBAL all streamed Obama's victory speech on their Web sites last night - while offering sporadic Web updates.
As for prime-time TV, WJZ (Channel 13) showed a CBS News graphic at 9:32 that told viewers Obama and McCain were the projected winners of Maryland. But you had to turn to cable TV for any information beyond the graphic.
The network-owned station chose not to interrupt the Big Brother reality series for any extended reporting on one of the most important elections of a lifetime.
david.zurawik@baltsun.com